Don't Be Afraid, It's Only Love
by C.E. Rowe
Summary: Connie settles into her new life in Los Angeles, while Mike adjusts to working at the DA's office without her. They stitch up their wounds and move on. But they find themselves in the same city once again, and they're offered another chance to choose one another.
1. Chapter 1

To Connie Rubirosa, Los Angeles was a place you went to die. Palm trees and burger chains sprouted from asphalt streets, and lawns struggled to produce the most persistent of weeds, let alone grass. At first, she enjoyed the extra sun, the convenient absence of rain, but as the months wore on and sweat-stains began to show on her crisp white blouses, she began to feel as much a prisoner as anyone else in the city.

She knew she was no longer a tourist when she finally gave in to her boss's (and mother's) pleas to buy a car. (She compromised and leased, unwilling to let go of her last scrap of denial. Denial of _what_ exactly she'd never admit to herself.) So, after six grueling weeks of three different buses shuttling her to and from work (and four nights of sleeping in her office just to avoid the commute) she swallowed her pride, admitted urban sprawl was a bitch, and came back from the dealership with a blue Toyota she paid more than she should have for.

After that, she stopped carving out time to visit Madame Tussauds or the La Brea tar pits with disposable cameras and money for souvenirs. She purchased lighter clothes and stowed her winter coats in storage bins, stopped checking the New York weather and paid no attention to California's. She bought In-N-Out for her coworkers on occasion and learned to navigate the 405 like a local. She removed Jack McCoy and Mike Cutter from her speed dial, and programmed her mother into the number two slot, second only to voicemail. (An unknown caller left a message in mid-July. It was short, succinct – just a heavy sigh before hanging up. _Wrong number_ , she convinced herself.)

Connie visited her mother, Cecelia, every other weekend, and assured her of her happiness in person and on the phone. At some point her promises would have to stop being lies, if not exactly true. Her step-father asked earnestly after her career and blossoming friendships, more for his wife's benefit than hers, and she tried to answer him as briefly as possible without sounding rude or inviting further questions. He greeted her as Connie from their first meeting when she was a teenager, though her mother would drop dead before she herself called her anything but Consuela. Lately, since the stroke, it seemed like she would drop dead anyway.

But Connie did her best to at least appear untroubled. She'd smile when her mother told her she needed to eat more and fussed over cookbooks to prepare elaborate meals every time she drove up to visit. Inevitably, Cecelia would tire herself out over reading recipes and gathering ingredients, and Connie would offer to help with a few things and wind up doing the lion's share of the work. They tacitly agreed that if Connie pretended she'd only sat back and watched, Cecelia wouldn't comment on her subpar culinary skills.

They were chatting over a platter of enchiladas when Cecelia decided to call her daughter's bluff.

"Sometimes," she began, her breathing anything but effortless, "I feel you resent me for making you move here."

Connie was quick to deny the allegation. "You didn't make me do anything, Mama," she said, reaching across the table to take her hand. "And I could never resent you."

"I don't want you to feel…" she trailed off, searching for the right word. "I don't want you to feel _obligated_ to help me just because I raised you. I'm not going to send you a bill for your childhood."

"The only reason I'm doing this," Connie soothed, "is because I love you."

Cecelia blinked back tears and mumbled an excuse about needing more napkins, so she could retreat back to the kitchen and wait for her emotions to subside. Connie sighed, pushing her food across her plate. The tears her mother felt ashamed of were the ones shed because she knew she might die soon; the other kind – the happy kind – she never hid from view.

They managed to finish their meal as though nothing had happened, and after the dishes were washed Connie exchanged restrained goodbyes with her mother and promised to call her next week.

Three days later, it wasn't her mother who called, but her step-father. It was 11 PM, and Cecelia had already gone to bed, judging by the way he was whispering.

"The prognosis," he said, after laboring through stilted hellos. "It isn't good, Connie."

He went on to tell her that they were hiring a live-in nurse. Her mother didn't want her to know, but he was telling her anyway.

"You need to know," he said emphatically, clearing his throat. "And I don't know where your sister's keeping herself these days, but if you would pass this along to her…"

She hung up without saying goodbye. She almost threw her phone across the room, but settled for dropping it on the coffee table. He treated her mother like a memo! He talked about her sister as if she were an acquaintance! But she felt more grief-stricken than angry, and had to remind herself that her mother was still alive and needed her more than ever.

She decided the best thing to do was stop missing New York.

* * *

The calendar had almost flipped to November– when snow would have already begun to dust her windowsills in Manhattan – and it was sixty degrees outside, storm clouds promising rain but nothing more. She was out on a date (she'd started doing that, recently) with an accountant she'd met at a coffee shop south of the boulevard, and dropped the usual hints to stage her exit.

"It's getting late," she said, as if apologizing for time. "I've got an early start tomorrow morning, I should be getting back home."

There'd been three different men since she'd arrived. They'd share a couple of drinks, a couple of endearing anecdotes, and she'd scramble (not very convincingly) for an excuse to leave. Once she'd retreated back into the citadel of her Sherman Oaks apartment, she'd dissect everything the stock broker or the insurance manager or the aspiring entrepreneur had told her. She invented flaws from nothing, to justify not calling them back when they asked to take her out again.

But that night the accountant with the straight teeth and weak jawline simply ignored her tactful protests and asked if she'd ever gone to Mel's Diner on the corner of Kester and Ventura. He didn't try to persuade her to stay for one more drink, or invite her back to his condo, or order her to finish listening to his asinine tale of woe like she was his secretary to boss around.

And, after all, she'd never called her apartment _home_ before.

"No," she replied, startled, "I've never been there." Her phone began to buzz in her purse, caller ID private.

"I'll let you get that," he offered, moving away from the bar, but she rested her hand on his forearm and silenced the ringer.

He took her surprise for acquiescence, and she let him. When he smiled, one chin multiplied to two.

"Great," he said, leading her out the door by her elbow. "They've got the best shakes in the whole county. Where is it you're from again?"

The accountant's name was Stan and he made very polite love to her after their fourth date. He drove her around the Valley in his eco-conscious Prius, taking care to avoid the tourist traps she'd frequented before meeting him.

He seemed to have an endless list of candlelit cafés and novelty stores specializing in items ranging from sea glass dining sets to windchimes constructed with metal scraps from junkyards. Sometimes he'd buy her a knick-knack or two, but usually they just browsed and fielded questions from proprietors just as quirky as their merchandise. Connie sometimes got the impression Stan was showing off, condescending to introduce her to the coastal culture that she'd been unable to access in New York; but most of the time he just told corny jokes and she retorted with puns of her own. She liked how he silly he was, and how she could be silly with him, though on his part it sometimes blurred the line between funny and irresponsible.

They went to a used bookstore the first week of December, her suggestion this time. Her co-worker had recommended it after interrogating her about "the lovely young man" who picked her up at the office one Thursday night, and since then Connie had reserved spending time with Stan for weekends only. She hadn't had the opportunity to thoroughly vet the venue as Stan did with all the places they galivanted on Saturday and Sunday afternoons, but she figured an hour or two weaving through shelves of bargain books was a bullet-proof plan.

It incensed her more than it should have when Stan greeted the cashier by name and dragged her all the way to the back to show her the vintage Hardy Boys collection he'd been coveting for the last ten years, but alas was not for sale. He tried to get her to read the dust jackets of all his favorite whodunit novels, but she refused on the grounds that her job provided enough crime to last her a lifetime. She also felt like being perverse.

The city would never belong to her more than it belonged to Stan, and it seemed that every time she found a new foothold to cement her niche, it crumbled from out from beneath her and she had to hope Stan would break her fall. She thought about this sometimes, as he snored softly beside her, and always concluded her discomfort was only her ego discovering its limits.

They spent four hours in the bookstore, and another two on the floor of Stan's bedroom flipping through the pages of their purchases for bookmarks left behind by their previous owners. Stan only managed to find a few receipts for grocery stores and Blockbuster, but Connie came away with an essay written by a twelfth grader in 1966 folded in the back of the copy of _Much Ado About Nothing_ she bought for her mother. She read it out loud to Stan, and read it again by the light of her phone when she woke the next morning, too early for the sun to be out. She'd decided by then to be greedy and keep the book for herself.

She'd silenced the ringer before they'd gone to bed, but she saw the call pop up on the screen as she scanned the last lines of immaculate cursive on the page. No caller ID. Five AM in LA, 8 AM in New York – not like it was relevant. She almost answered it anyway, but Stan pulled her back against his chest, and she deposited the phone on the nightstand. She watched it until the screen went dark, and drifted off to a dreamless sleep.

* * *

"You went to _Disneyland_?" Stan asked one evening, incredulous, spearing his tempura with a chopstick.

"I'd never been before. Besides," Connie smiled, trying to lighten the mood, "it's the happiest place on Earth, right?" She eyed his bowl, unable to ignore his fumbling fingers. "There's no shame in using a fork, you know," she said, jumping at the chance to change the subject.

But his lack of dexterity involving South Asian cuisine proved to be an even sorer spot than The Mouse. He responded with a sharp "No, don't!" when she got up to get silverware from her kitchen, and she briefly considered dumping him that instant and scarfing down both their meals after she drop-kicked him from her apartment.

But the horror flooding his face as he realized he'd offended her rivaled that of some of the murderers she'd convicted when the jury told them they'd never be free again. A nagging voice in the back of head argued that she'd never slept with any defendants, but a quieter, more vindictive whisper reminded her that, yes, she did – and he was guilty, too. A third and final voice told her that she _was_ Stan's freedom, and denying him meant condemning him to a prison of loneliness. This was the voice she believed the least, but the one she more or less listened to in this instance.

She didn't sit coyly in his lap like he'd gestured when he saw her expression soften – she wasn't a fucking dog – but she returned to the couch and jabbed at her rice in silence.

Was waiting for an apology like this passive-aggressive? She didn't want to know. Either way, he placed his hand over hers, and when she didn't jerk away he tentatively moved it to her cheek, like he feared she'd bite it off, but judged it worth the risk.

"I'm sorry," he coaxed, looking a little too lascivious to be remorseful. "Teach me how to eat like a civilized human being."

She obliged.

* * *

Stan spent Christmas with Connie at her mother's house in the hills. Her extended family liked him better than the boys she dated in high school, but not quite as much as the med student she was briefly engaged to during the end of her clerkship.

Stan complimented her Aunt Elizabeth's cooking, but clearly did not enjoy the meal, and excused himself to use the restroom too many times and remained there longer than (Connie thought) necessary. He thought he was subtle.

But other than these missteps he behaved well, accepting the teasing of the women and issuing noncommittal responses to the innuendos of the men. He brought a bottle of wine that went unopened, enough of a gift to avoid insult, but nothing to make the family feel guilty for not thinking to get him anything.

He and Connie exchanged presents in the sparse living room of his condo. She'd frantically searched for a gift on Christmas Eve, ashamed to join the crowds scouring the mall for worthy gifts in the dregs of stores already looted for the holidays. After hours of darting from store to store, she gave up and bought him a pen from the same place she'd gotten a desk set for her step-father three years ago. It was expensive enough to compensate for its lack of sentiment.

Stan hadn't fared much better. He pulled a bag decorated with felt poinsettia leaves from underneath his plastic tree. A swath of sheer leopard print peeked out from the opening; he hadn't covered in in tissue paper, and the card on the bag handle was still addressed to him from a "Meagan" he'd never spoken about before. The price tag still dangled from a limp sleeve, reading $34.00 on one side with a red target stamped on the other. He watched Connie open it, waiting for a rebuke like a student submitting an incomplete assignment.

She felt slighted, but didn't object. So, they weren't great gifters, what did that prove? Christmas was only one day out of the year. She held the shirt to her chest, noting the deep V-neck and scratchy cloth. Already she could tell it was one size too big. Too tired to lie, she set the shirt next to her on the couch and discarded the rest of her clothing.

They lay in his bed afterwards, the sheets tucked tightly around them.

"It was a terrible present," Stan admitted, resting his chin on her head.

Connie laughed into his neck and murmured in agreement. "It reminds of this case I worked once," she said without thinking, "back in New York."

Stan hummed, prompting her to continue. She could feel the vibrations of his vocal chords against her cheek.

"A man murdered two people just so he could prove he was JFK's illegitimate son. We questioned his mother to see if any of it might be true," she sighed, squirming for a more comfortable position. "She wore this awful leopard-print blouse, played the demure socialite. We laughed about it all the way back to the office."

This "we" sometimes cropped up in conversation. She immediately regretted bringing "we" up every time she did it, but Stan never asked who "we" was, and she found she liked talking about "we".

They lulled into an almost-comfortable silence, and he dipped his chin to brush his lips against Connie's forehead - tender, apologetic - just before she could drift to sleep.

"I meant the pen," he whispered into her hair, drawing her closer.

She turned in his arms, pressing her back against his chest. A wry smile ghosted across her lips, amused at herself for not being angry.

She returned the shirt a week later and purchased a few groceries with her refund.

* * *

Connie didn't receive another mysterious call that Christmas, like she was half-expecting to; that would have been too invasive. New Years, however, was not. One of the ADA's she'd become friendly with at work had thrown a party to celebrate – champagne and caviar all around. It was still early in the evening in California – she wasn't drunk enough yet to answer it.

"Is that 'we'," Stan asked, drunk enough now to be jealous, "calling for you again? Why don't you ever answer when I'm around?"

"I don't answer at all," she assured him, and plied him with a kiss when the ball dropped. His mouth tasted of beer. She hardly spoke to him about New York after that.


	2. Chapter 2

**One Year Earlier**

Mike's office was cluttered with case files – 102 to be exact, every appeal from every defense lawyer in Manhattan challenging Marcus Woll's convictions of their clients. And with good reason, too; if the prosecutor being a serial killer isn't grounds to retry a case, what is?

While this was one of the most tedious uses of his weekend since his law school days, Mike found that burying himself in work was just the distraction he needed – even if the thoughts he wanted to avoid were of the person sitting directly across from him now. He couldn't think about how badly he'd blundered, how transparent he felt. Woll accused him of feelings he could hardly admit to himself, and he'd all but confessed those feelings to Jack not an hour later. Not to mention his brilliant word choice when discussing trial strategy with Connie, and the lies he spouted about her just to bait Woll into incriminating himself. The tense smile she'd given him when Jack had saddled them with the flood of paperwork that poured in after Woll's conviction only confirmed the rift he'd created between them.

They'd reluctantly agreed to spend Saturday and Sunday in the office wading through the mess. Mike threw on jeans and a sweatshirt that first morning, second guessed himself and scrambled into a suit, only to discard the suit in favor of what he'd had on to begin with. If overthinking didn't help on his LSAT twenty-five years ago, then it certainly wouldn't benefit when making a decision about something as trivial as his wardrobe. (But he kept a baseball bat by his bed, and he swung it a few times before coming into work that day.)

It was mid-November and a thin layer of snow blanketed the streets of New York. It had melted to gray sludge by now, but the novelty had yet to disintegrate into the bitterness of late December and January. (A white Christmas was fine, but anything over that was overkill.) The trees hadn't lost all their leaves yet, and the shortest day of the year still felt like eons away. Some people still denied it wasn't summer anymore.

Dawn hadn't fully broken yet when Mike pulled into the parking lot. He bought two cups of coffee from the usual vendor on the street, nodded politely to the security guards, and rode the elevator up to his office. His stomach dropped when he found Connie already at her desk, typing at her computer, immaculately dressed in a skirt and blazer. A stack of papers peered up at her from the open briefcase lying by her feet, and a metal mug sat dangerously close to her elbow, still steaming with homemade coffee. She hadn't brought any for him, and she looked up before he could duck out and ditch one of the cups in the trash can.

"You're here early," he managed, shifting his feet.

"I couldn't sleep," she admitted, letting the suggestion hang in the air before continuing. "I kept thinking about everything we have to do – I just wanted to get a jump start."

"It's a good thing I brought more coffee, then."

He flashed her a quick smile and she returned the favor; the ice hadn't broken - hell, it wasn't even thawing - but at least the clouds had dissipated for the time being, and the sun was allowed room to breathe.

"Didn't do much good," she said. "The files are locked in your office. I've been chipping away at some of our other cases."

"Work is work," he shrugged, brushing past her. "Remind me to make you a copy," he said, gesturing to his set of keys. The ones for his apartment, car, and safety deposit box had their own ring, completely separate.

"Don't bother," she said, and, he noted, a little too quickly.

He might have lunged at the elephant in the room right then and there had she not recovered herself.

"I'm sorry, I just wouldn't want you to go to so much trouble." She might have sounded desperate, had her tone not made it very clear that her words were precise and deliberate, that she was not completely in control.

He smiled wanly down at the door handle.

* * *

Five hours later, they found themselves sitting on the floor, buried to the waist in paperwork.

"It feels like we haven't made a dent," she complained, shutting a file and tossing it into a pile a few feet away.

The corners of Mike's mouth flinched upward in pained amusement. "That's because we haven't," he said.

She smiled in defeat, resting her chin on her knuckles. And she kept looking at him, just for the sake of holding his gaze. It neither promised nor hinted at any emotion, but it was without artifice, no guise of professionalism. She took another swig of coffee (her third cup this morning; she never got around to gulping down the one Mike brought her) staining the rim of her mug with her lipstick. She rubbed the dark circles around her eyes and patted her cheeks, still exhausted from the circus of the previous week.

Fatigue blurred Mike's judgement as well, and on a whim he decided to steer the conversation into more dangerous waters.

"Would you rather we hadn't convicted him?" he asked, falling just short of facetious. He kicked himself for saying it even as the words left his mouth. Helplessly, watched her expression darken.

"I'd rather he hadn't killed all those people," she said, measuring her response carefully.

An uncomfortable silence hung heavy in the air.

"I'm sorry," he blurted. "About the trial. I didn't handle it well."

"You won the case. I'd say that's handling it pretty well."

"It's not all about winning."

"Really?" she jabbed. "Then what was it about?"

Shock rippled across her features, as if surprised at herself for pushing this hard. For a moment, he thought she knew the answer, and, what's more, that she wanted him to admit it to her. But her face became placid once again, save the panic in her eyes. It seemed cross-examining him was more daunting than any witness in court, but Mike was too wrought to revel in it. (It was only much later when he shamefully acknowledged that he'd rather her be afraid of him than indifferent.) At the time, he only considered his response, and how tempting it would be to tell the truth, kiss her before she knew what hit her, pull away before she had a chance to shove him back, and let her smack the taste of her mouth right off his lips. For a fraction of a second he contemplated damning the truth and just doing the rest, come what may.

But he opened his mouth and shut it, felt the right words rise in his throat like bile.

"Justice," he managed, squirming under the scrutiny of his own introspection. "That's all it's ever been about."

("A half-truth is just a convenient euphemism for a lie", someone had told him once, but by who? He promptly buried the memory and ushered his emotions back into solitary confinement – only when they were no longer a danger to society would they be set free.)

 _Now is not the time to have scruples_ , he reminded himself, and avoided scouring her face for even the smallest flicker of disappointment. She accepted his response with a nod and turned back to her work.

"How about a lunch break?" he asked, desperate to salvage any progress made in the road to recovery from Marcus Woll.

She acquiesced, but her tone was curt and her smile identical to the one she gave him on Friday. (Shouldn't a hotdog have been a little more exciting than case files?) Her smile didn't become more genuine when he handed her her coat, or when he opened the door for her. He couldn't begrudge her for it; she didn't owe him anything other than her unwavering loyalty, and nowhere in the tacit contract of their working relationship did it say she had to be happy about it.

But, damn him, he'd do anything to see her soften again, just a little bit. Actually, come to think of it, he wouldn't do a whole hell of a lot. But he might swallow his pride (his _male pride_ , as she'd once accused) and apologize for once, but he'd already done that and he wasn't about to try it again.

They sat together on a bench on Hogan Place, their worries only a block away. They clutched greasy, aluminum-wrapped hotdogs in their gloved hands, and they ate them without relish with Connie's handbag acting as a buffer between them. They dispensed with talking for the time being, and in spite of everything, the silence that enveloped them was comfortable. Delicate flakes of snow fluttered down, but they melted almost immediately on contact. Out of the corner of his eye, Mike watched them cling tenderly to Connie's coat and hat before dissolving into splotches of water. He stared down the bridge of his nose at his own breath, biting into his hotdog more out of obligation than desire. He wasn't really that hungry.

"I just wanted to," Connie said suddenly.

Mike turned to search her face for an explanation, but he was rebuffed by a curtain of her hair. Had he been another man he might have reached across the chasm to brush his thumb underneath her chin or tuck her hair behind her ear. And he thought about doing those things, and thought about doing them with increasing frequency. But Mike Cutter was not another man, and the best he could do was keep his mouth shut, even when his ego was telling him to argue with her.

She continued, "That's the question you've been asking yourself since the trial began, right?" It was more of a confirmation than an accusation, but a hint of both played in her tone. "I didn't even like him. He behaved about one step above a pig, but most men don't even make it that far." She paused and spared him a glance, to show she wasn't talking about him. "I only showed up at his house because I knew he'd let me in. It _was_ dumb," she said, and it stung him to hear his words in her mouth, almost as much as it hurt to hear her call herself a _damaged witness_. "It was a mistake."

Mike kept waiting for a tear to fall in her lap, but none did.

She smoothed her hat and skirt, and moved her handbag from the bench to her lap. She'd said her piece, finished her hotdog, and now it was time to head back, no response from him necessary. She enameled her professional demeanor back into place, making it clear that what she said wasn't so much for his benefit as it was for their jobs'.

As they stood up to leave, Connie scraped her calf on a nail protruding from the bench. Mike was more concerned than he should have been, though all it amounted to was a tense hand placed briefly on her shoulder. A few drops of blood landed on the cement. Connie always left her mark wherever she went.


End file.
